halloween

We had a great time celebrating Halloween this year! Even though it wasn't Emily's first Halloween, it felt like it since we didn't end up dressing up last year. We decided to go with the robber/money bag theme, which seemed to be pretty popular this year from what I've seen on Facebook :) But at least no one else in our ward did the same thing... that would have been embarrassing ;) We had a lot of fun at the trunk or treat last Friday. We decorated our car as a jail cell with wanted signs of me and Grant. The kids in the ward had a lot of fun looking for policemen to come arrest us so they could get the reward money. Grant ended up spending most of the time in the back of the car acting like he'd been caught :) We also decided last minute to decorate the side of the car as the crime scene. We made a safe that had been broken into. It was fun! Here are some pics:

We weren't able to get the best pictures of Emily in her outfit because she was either cranky or not wanting to stand still, so here's what we have to work with...

Wednesday night, we did a Halloween dinner at my parents' house. Fleming and I started working at 1:30 and weren't done til around 6:30. Thanks mom for taking on the babysitting duties! We definitely outdid ourselves from last year! There were a few pinterest fails along the way, but we're happy with the way most of it turned out!

We didn't dress up Halloween night, because we didn't think it was worth it to take Emily trick-or-treating this year. We did go to a block party, though, and that was a lot of fun! And Emily wore her Halloween bow to celebrate the holiday:

We hope everyone else had a great Halloween!

13 months

Emily turned 13 months old yesterday! I wasn't planning on doing any monthly updates past the first year, but she's learned and changed so much this past month, that I just had to do a quick update.
We're amazed at how smart she is! She can do so much now and we're just not ready for it. Here's a list of some of Emily's new accomplishments:

-She's starting to say some words (kind of). She says more (moh) when she wants some more food. When she wants us to help her with something she'll bring it over to us and say "eh?" like she's asking for help. One of her favorite toys is pretend phones. She knows that she's supposed to put it to her ear and say hello. Sometimes it sounds a little bit like hello, but it always has a questioning tone to it like she's asking hello. She'll also bring us the phone and have us answer it. Whenever a real phone is ringing she'll point at it or bring it to us and make sure we answer it. She starts to get really worried if we don't answer it.
-Just likes she knows what to do with a phone, she also knows what to do with a remote. She'll grab it and point it at the tv. She's so smart!

-she's started shaking her head when she's about to do something she knows she shouldn't. She also shakes her head if we're giving her something she doesn't want.
-Emily's learned to point this month. She'll point to pictures in books, food she wants, something she wants us to do, etc.
-She's taking her first steps! She first started taking steps about a week after her birthday and she's just gotten more and more confident since then. The most she'll take right now is about 5 or 6 steps at a time, but she can go forever if someone's holding her hand. She would much rather walk than crawl, so it probably won't be long before she's walking everywhere.
-Emily loves organizing things! She'll empty baskets or bags and then fill them up again. She also loves taking a set of objects and relocating them one by one somewhere else. And she's gotten really good at stacking things like bowls, cups, etc. She'll stack and unstack all day. She also really likes getting in and out of things like this toy basket and box:

-She's starting to get a little bit more cuddly. Usually only when she's tired, though. When I sing to her before bed, she'll lay her head on my shoulder and it makes me want to sing longer so I can soak up the cuddles. Occasionally, she'll cuddle us at other times if she's in a silly mood. She'll attack us with hugs or kisses and just laugh and laugh.

-She's just a fun, happy girl and we're enjoying every day with her!

This is Halloween

I'm so excited for the holiday season coming up! This time of year is so fun where we have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's right in a row. It's one of the many reasons that Fall has always been my favorite season! This past week I've been working on getting all of my Halloween (and some generic fall) decorations up. Here's a look into what our home is looking like right now:

close up of the ornaments (they're skulls)

These blocks stay up year round and rotate to say different words. I thought this side was appropriate for halloween. And it has the cute little pumpkin jar on top right now.

This weekend, I convinced Grant to work on pumpkins with me for our in-between-conference activity. I'm so excited about the way they turned out! I'm just hoping they last until Halloween! All the pieces are pretty secure, but I'm a little worried about them staying put with all of the wind. We'll see how it goes. At least I got pictures to document!

I won one of these stakes at Bunco night last week... so cute! Thanks Sierra!!

The previous homeowner left this behind when they moved out. It's one of the few things they left that we're not complaining about :)

Happy Halloween! Our costumes are in the works so there will definitely be another Halloween post coming toward the end of the month!

Emily's Birthday Party

We had so much fun celebrating Emily's birthday on Saturday! It was so nice to have Barb and Cameron in town and we're already missing them. Emily got spoiled with all of her fun presents! She got lots of clothes and books and puzzles and she loved them all. But her favorite gift was her new toy car from Grandma Barb. She has Grant push her around on it and he gets going pretty fast. She is just giddy when she gets the chance to ride on her car and she gets upset when he gets too tired and has to stop. I guess the toy is going to be great for her and a lot of work for us! Thanks Grandma Barb!! She loved her cupcake. It was more fun for her than the cake because she could hold it more easily. She still tried to get the frosting off of her fingers though. She realized that licking them worked the best :) Thanks to everyone who helped but this fun party together and to everyone who came!